What are You Baking the Week of June 10, 2018?

[BakerAunt]

I'm spending Sunday afternoon baking my version of the Dark Grains Bread from the second edition of Bernard Clayton's Bread book. It's the third time I've baked it, and I plan to post my revision of his recipe here, at some point, but I think that I want to try it wit a bit less yeast.

I'm also baking Bob's Delicious Chocolate Chip Muesli Cookies (recipe from Bob's Red Mill). I use dark chocolate chips and reduce them from 1 cup to 1/2 cup.

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• This topic was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Joan Simpson]

Baked a Blackberry cobbler.

[BakerAunt]

I pulled out some frozen pumpkin on Monday and baked Toffee-Pumpkin Snack Cake, a recipe that appeared in Better Homes and Gardens Fall Baking (2017), p. 28. The recipe makes a 13x9” cake, but I halved it and baked it in an 8x8 inch pan. It uses some buckwheat, spelt, and chia seeds, as well as AP flour, and I added 2 Tbs. powdered milk.

I also made a double recipe of dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese crackers. I will bake them in a few days, after the dough sits in the refrigerator.

[skeptic7]

I baked whole wheat scones with raisins and candied orange peel. This is my normal quick bread/muffin recipe but as its baked in a cast iron pan I feel free to call it a scone. I took it in to work but its not as popular as the apple scones.
I also did a cheese pizza to eat for lunch over the next couple of days. I particularly like cold cheese pizzas on hot days. This turned out better than the last pizza -- I'm not sure why but the crust seems to have risen during the baking.

Baker Aunt;
Is your whole wheat sourdough cracker recipe posted anywhere? It sounds delicious and if I was anywhere in you area I could help make it disappear.

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Skeptic 7. The recipe is posted here at Nebraska Kitchen:

Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers

I included a note about the amount of sourdough starter. I have a thick but still liquid starter that came from a recipe in Sunset Magazine over 25 years ago. It gets fed with KAF flour and 1% milk. However, I think that other starters would also yield a good result.

Let me know if you try these. And if you are ever in northern Indiana, come over for soup and crackers.

[BakerAunt]

I awoke early on Wednesday morning, and there was nothing for breakfast, so I baked a new recipe, "Hazelnut and Dried-Pear Scones," that appeared in Bon Appetit (August (2001), p. 120. The feature story was on Eugene, Oregon, and the recipe came from The Campbell House, which serves them in its dining room. Note: As my husband and I were preparing to move a year ago, I was frantically going through my collection of Bon Appetit issues, which dates back to the 1990s through about 2005, and pulling out recipes that I thought I might try some day. This recipe was one of them.

Both Wonky and I are charter members of the Make It Better Recipe Guild, so of course I altered this recipe a bit. I substituted in 1 cup of barley flour for one of the 3 cups of flour, used buttermilk instead of regular milk, cut the salt from 3/4 to 1/2 tsp. and deleted a tsp. of vanilla extract (I want to taste the butter!) and a tsp. of grated orange peel. They have a light texture, although an individual scone feels heavy for its size. I like that combination of hazelnuts and dried pears.

I never did get through all those issues of Bon Appetit. My husband relented and agreed I could bring those still unmined issues with me.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[chocomouse]

Today I made a ham and Swiss braid for a potluck, and a batch of Coconut cupcakes with coconut icing. That was from a KAF Goodness mix, and really not good. It made only 6 cupcakes (and stated so on the box) and the dough did not even fill the cupcake wells (a standard size pan/wells). The icing is a weird consistency and has no coconut flavor. I really like the Goodness Cinnamon Streusel Coffeecake (makes a 9 x 9 pan) but was also not impressed with the Chocolate Cookies or the Lemon Bar mix. I won't be supporting their Goodness charity any longer!

[BakerAunt]

Tonight I made pizza using the KAF Ultra-Thin Crust Pizza recipe.

[Joan Simpson]

Tonight we had spaghetti and meat sauce with garlic toast.Sorry this is in wrong place grrrrr,should have been on cooking.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Joan Simpson.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday afternoon, I baked the Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made up earlier this week.

Skeptic7: I made some minor changes to the directions: 1) I dock the dough all over once it is rolled out BEFORE brushing with the grapeseed oil. 2) I wait to sprinkle on the salt until I have cut the dough into squares. That keeps the pizza wheel from going awry if it hits a chunk of salt. 3) I've reduced the baking time (in my oven) to 18 minutes, and I rotate the cookie sheet half-way through that time at 9 minutes.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a 10x10 Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake and an 8x8 chocolate crazy cake, frosting both of them with the buttermilk/pecan frosting from the Texas Sheet Cake recipe.

[RiversideLen]

I baked a batch of sandwich buns today. I would have waited a day but I wanted to get it done before the heatwave starts tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

When I went to the Farmers Market on Saturday morning, one of the Amish stands had small baskets (pint) of strawberries for $3.50. These are the small strawberries, which taste so much better than the large ones sold commercially. We will likely eat them plain—they are that delicious--but with what?

I decided that a Sour-Cream Pound Cake is in order, but I did not want to bake the KAF recipe which always seems a bit dry to me. One of the cookbooks, which I made sure last summer I could quickly unpack once we got here, is Susan G. Purdy’s The Perfect Cake, which is my go-to baking book for any cake. I was not disappointed: there on pages 118-119 is “Sour-Cream Pound Cake,” which can be baked in an 8 1/2x 4 1/2 -inch loaf pan (or 9x5) or in a 6 ½ cup tube pan. I pulled out the Vintage Star Bundt pan I bought from KAF with the help of some Bakers Bucks and mixed up a batch of THE Grease to coat the pan.

I’ve probably not tried this recipe before because it requires separating the three eggs. I was tempted to forgo that step, but I decided to follow the recipe exactly, as Susan Purdy has never steered me wrong. I had a bit of trouble when I beat the egg whites. I had decided to use the whisk attachment for my hand mixer, but when the egg and sugar mixture looked like it was not firming up, I washed the regular beaters and used them instead. It took a while, but I got to what I think was “stiff but not dry” whites. The cake bakes at 325F, which is a hard temperature to set with my c. 1970s oven, which likes to be about 25-50F degrees hotter than the set temperature. KAF also had a note that their staff has found this Vintage Star Bundt pan tends to bake faster than usual, so I checked the cake ten minutes early, and it was done.

We had it for dessert tonight, with strawberries on the side. The cake has a light, melt in the mouth texture and a slightly crunchy bottom (which was the top in the Bundt pan). It was worth separating the eggs, and I will definitely bake this cake again. It can also be doubled and baked in a 12-cup Bundt pan.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

The crazy cake/cake-in-the-pan that I made on Thursday was made with gluten-free flour. It baked up fine, but unlike the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake, I don't think it handles having hot frosting dumped on it before it cools, it didn't set up right and it was very soft, almost gooey. (But very tasty nonetheless.)

I made it because we were going to a party Friday and some of the guests are GF while another can't eat egg. (Fortunately, nobody was dairy-free because I used the buttermilk frosting from the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake on both cakes.)

There were only two or three pieces of the regular Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake left, and they're gone already. We sent the GF/no-egg one home with a friend, she was enjoying it very much.

[RiversideLen]

Baker Aunt, I like having strawberries, as well as most other berries and cherries mixed in with plain yogurt.

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